Academic reading 1: US j-blogs back in 2005

Not much blogging recently. Sometimes you just have to close down a load of tabs and write some of your PhD. 10,290 odd words on this chapter so far and up to around 35,000 in total.

Been doing some more academic reading on blogging and journalism. Thought I'd stick some of that on the blog. So here's the first bite-sized, non-blog style summary.


Jane B Singer, 2005, The Political J-blogger: Normalising a new media form to fit old norms and practices.

Singer’s study of US political journalism-blogs or ‘j-blogs’ in 2004 argues that at this stage journalists were ‘normalising the blog as a component, and in some ways an enhancement of traditional journalism norms and practices’.

Journalists were still operating as gatekeepers on blogs.

They rarely allowed comments from readers on blogs; tended to link to existing, and established mainstream media sites creating ‘a sort of online echo chamber of mass-mediated political views’; and retained an emphasis on a vertical relationship between journalist and user, rather than positioning themselves as a participant in a conversation.

Full article here. (Requires Athens or institutional password).